Are You Dating A Narcissist?

Ever since John Edwards explained away his affair with Rielle Hunter, saying, "I started to believe that I was special and became increasing egocentric", we've been thinking about how it is just SUCH a dealbreaker to date a guy who's a narcissist. After all, who wants to end up in a bitter divorce battle like Christie Brinkley, whose ex-husband, Peter Cook, (who admitted to lying and cheating) was diagnosed as narcissistic by a court psychiatrist during their publicized divorce trial proceedings. But how do you tell if a person is a narcissist before you get caught up in their web of egocentricity? We took a look at the actual key factors in the diagnosis for narcissism and found out that a lot of women we know have the real life experience to back up the facts. All the info you need to know, after the jump…

DIAGNOSIS: Has a grandiose sense of self-importance: Exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements.

REAL LIFE: He’s in a band, or is an actor, or is a really pretentious artist. He works professionally for applause.

"The biggest narcissist I ever dated was a guy that was in a marginally successful band. Our entire relationship was focused on doing things around his show schedule–shows which I always felt pressured to attend, even though, frankly, I thought they were kind of boring. He was really into talking about his craft and had no interest in my boring day job. Loser." – Delilah

REAL LIFE: His aspirations are beyond the usual daydreams. He wants and thinks he deserves the kind of lifestyle only afforded the very, very, very rich and lucky and lacks a sense of humor about the subject.

"I went on a few dates with this guy who, I swear, had this obsession with being featured in GQ someday. He was pretty successful professionally, and, in truth, the idea of him actually being in GQ wasn't totally outrageous, but the fact that he wanted it so badly, and talked about it, was so unattractive." -- Kellie